The Government’s inquiry into sexual abuse of children – initiated by the Prime Minister when she was Home Secretary – is in yet more disarray after the loss of its leading counsel. Here, an expert urges those in charge to learn from the Church’s more practical action
please spare a thought for Professor Alexis Jay. She is not only the fourth chairwoman of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, but, only a few weeks into her new job, Ben Emmerson QC, counsel to the inquiry, has resigned after a suspension over “concerns” about his leadership of the team.
This followed the resignation of Elizabeth Prochaska, the junior counsel, a couple of weeks earlier. And, no sooner had Jay got her feet under the table than one group of sexual abuse survivors, who were in care at Lambeth’s now closed Shirley Oaks Care Home, announced that they would be withdrawing their cooperation. Why? Because the new chairwoman is a social worker and, as social workers are deeply implicated in the failures in, and allegations about, child abuse, she has a supposed conflict of interest. Leaving aside that this might apply to any one of a number of professionals, it is insulting to Jay who chaired the inquiry into abuse in Rotherham without any such objections.
